


Naming Conventions

by djinnj



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Kidfic, Melinda May as Aunt May
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djinnj/pseuds/djinnj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Premise:  How to have an Asian-American Peter Parker adopted by Ben and Melinda Parker, and still call Melinda “Aunt May”. Here’s one way.</p><p>A friend and I were throwing ideas around on Tumblr, but I thought about it some more and I think this works better. This is more of a musing over things than a proper story, but I like it enough to post it.  Ch1 is before Peter comes to live with his aunt and uncle. I've decided that following chapters will be short scenes/stories chronologically through to the present MCU, and more properly in a story format. So Ch1 is essentially a prolonged prologue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. White Picket Fence

**Author's Note:**

> Peter Parker: son of Richard and Mary (CIA), adopted by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker.  
> Since Ben and Richard Parker are brothers (let’s say Ben was the elder by 3-5 years).  
> IF Mary and May were good friends growing up. and IF May is actually Melinda May and Mary was Chinese-American.

Melinda and Mary met as children, before they were old enough to realize there was a time they had not known one another. Potlucks were a typical thing among their first generation Chinese immigrant parents who all knew each other from college in Taiwan and now lived and worked in the NY/NJ area. Many had dispersed out from the city into the suburbs but they were eager to spend time with their old friends and laugh and drink and eat and tell stories like they had when they were poor graduate students sharing apartments in Queens. The growing herd of children was gathered together at children's tables for meals and sent out to play in a spacious backyard full of trees and fireflies winking up from the grass. Melinda being a little older than Mary she took the lead in the group games. They would team up whenever they all played hide-and-seek in the bright summer nights, Melinda showing Mary how to creep silently past the seeker when they needed to find a better spot. As they grew older, they found more ways to stay in touch and they stayed friends even through college and then CIA training for Mary (with the distant mentorship of Melinda’s mother) and SHIELD for Melinda.

While at the CIA, Mary met Richard and she became good friends with him, later starting a romance. Melinda was stationed out of the NYC SHIELD offices by then and she and Mary continued to spend time together whenever they could. This was when Melinda met Ben who was in the military at the time. He towered over her, but this big man with large hands and a deep voice never oppressed her with his presence. Spending time with their friends as third and fourth wheel, they liked each other at their first meeting, and grew to enjoy each other’s company a great deal. By 1993, Mary and Richard had been married for a few years and had a baby on the way, and Melinda and Ben continued to meet at weekend barbecues and family events and enjoy those times together. The interest was there and they both acknowledged it but it was not the right time. Melinda wanted to be a field agent and knowing that it would entail a great deal of time away, she wanted to keep her life streamlined and serious romance was not part of that. 

In 1994, Peter was born and Melinda officially became “May ayi”, although it would be three years before Peter would say it or call Ben “bobo” with any reliability. Once Peter started talking, however, it became very difficult to get him to stop. He was a chatterbox, and although Melinda’s schedule was erratic, she did her best to spend time with her old friends and their new family whenever she could and she managed better than she had expected. It helped that so many of the family were in the intelligence community; even Ben understood that she broke arrangements because of necessity not desire. It was 1996 after a hilarious afternoon watching children with water balloons run around a yard that had looked so much bigger when she had been as small as this new generation. Melinda looked deeply into Ben’s kind eyes as he told her he was leaving the service and coming home for good, and she knew that lots of kids and a house in the 'burbs was not what the future held for her. But still. Her schedule was still difficult and unpredictable, but now his would not be equally as constrained. But still. Leaning against his side and tucking his arm around her, she agreed to a tentative relationship, to try it out and see if they could make it work. Not 3 kids and a dog and a white picket fence, but something good nonetheless. 

Melinda and Ben clicked like Richard and Mary clicked, although their lifestyles were vastly different. It was solid and real and wonderful, even if they would have liked a little more, but “more” would have required Melinda to change her field status. And while she loved Ben, she also loved her work. Her hope was to eventually retire from field specialist to analyst and have more time for a life, one that included a warm, laughing man with big hands and a sweet smile. It was not unreasonable; field specialists had a limited run before the wear and tear of a dangerous job moved them either up or out. They had a plan.

In 1999, Bahrain happened and Melinda came home distant and silent. The vivid, mischievous woman who had replaced Ben’s shaving foam with whipped cream on three separate occasions (and caught him out every time), was gone. 

That was a difficult year. Melinda curled in on herself and disappeared from her relationships with family, with friends, with Ben. Before when she would be gone for days or weeks at a time, she had always been _present_ when she was with them, vibrant and deeply engaged. Now, she could be in the same room and still remain absent, and she slipped away from invitations and out of rooms like a wisp of vapor. She pushed Ben away with her seeming indifference and he pushed back, trying as much as he could to get her to let him in, to let him help.

It was hard. She asked for and was given a desk job in the most tedious of offices that nonetheless required a high security clearance due to the sensitivity of the documents that traversed her desk. Still, despite too much family and too much solitude, fights with Ben when she pushed too far and her own self-hatred that ate away at the core of her, slowly, Melinda got better. She was deeply changed, however, and she told Ben that she would never get back to who she’d been. He told her that the future was where he was looking to go with her.

In June 2001, Melinda and Ben got married. It was a good day, one of more and more good days they had together. Melinda’s mother said “about time”. Mary hugged her until they were both red in the face and laughing too hard to breathe. Richard and Ben slung their arms around each others’ shoulders and looked on at their wives who had been sisters in all but name before they’d ever met them. Peter, when informed that May ayi was now to be called dabomu gave them all a betrayed look and asked why the naming thing had to be so haaaard. The group photograph in front of the red and gold double happiness preserved their laughter at this response, and six-going-on-seven-year-old Peter’s look of disgust.

Two years later, that photograph looked over the tableau of Ben and Melinda holding Peter close as he wept and clutched at them, their own tears spilling as he gasped and struggled to breathe. Mary and Richard were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every relationship has a title that shows the the relationship of the speaker to the person being referred to or addressed. Father's side and mother's side have different titles, and the ranking by age within the category is also noted in the title. "Dabo" for father's eldest brother (eldest uncle on the father's side). "Dabomu" for wife of father's eldest brother. Meanwhile, father's eldest sister would be "dagu" and father's eldest sister's husband would be "dagudie". There are variations on this, too, depending on region and formality. The whole point of this note is to explain why there's a difference between the obligatory family honorific and the honorary title of "auntie" that May gets when she's called "May ayi". 
> 
> "Ayi" means "auntie" but in this usage, it's attached to the woman's last name (in this case May) to indicate that she's a close family friend of the parents generation. If she were of the grandparents' generation, she'd get "granny", and if she were of the same generation, she'd get the "sister" term assuming one didn't use her given name or some other nickname. And if she were called "sister", she'd be referred to with the one specific to whether she were older or younger than the speaker.


	2. Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 2004.

Melinda looked at the plastic bag in her hand and shook it to hear it rustle. She considered just how much work would be involved in cleaning up after and firmed her mouth as she dropped the bag in her basket. It would be worth it. 

“Aunt May!” Peter hurried around the aisle endcap. He had begun calling her that at Halloween and by the winter holidays it had completely ousted _May ayi_ ( _dabomu_ never stood a chance). She was certain all his friends thought her first name was ‘May’. Not that she was certain he had many friends; he mentioned only a few names regularly and never asked to visit anyone or invited anyone over. She thought of her own friendship with Mary and sighed a little inside as she turned and smiled at him. 

“Did you find something?”

“They have the epoxy I need for my project, and the paint. I have to get a new brush for the paint, though.” He led her through the aisles of the craft store, chattering away about different kinds of bristles and solvents. 

“Did you see any kits you like? I thought I saw an electronics one.”

He scoffed as only a nine-year-old can scoff. “It’s just a switch and some LEDs; Uncle Ben has better stuff at home in his zombie survival box.”

“You mean his junk box. I could throw it out and he wouldn’t even miss it.” 

“Some of it works!” 

“Not enough of it, and you can’t tell what works and what doesn’t. I don’t see how it would be any use in a zombie invasion.”

He bounced a little on his toes as he looked over the paint brushes for just the right tips, his lower lip pouting as he concentrated. He made his choice and then grinned at her over his shoulder, and she caught her breath. He looked so much like his father in that moment, and a little bit like Ben. “You could throw it at them! That’s better than nothing!”

She rolled her eyes and slung an arm around his shoulders, tugging him in and ruffling his hair. He snickered and pulled away to crouch down at the paints, spinning the paintbrush in his fingers as he debated colors. 

Today was good. She breathed deep and slow and looked around in the bright glare of the fluorescent lights, noting again the surveillance camera dome to their left and keeping her face angled slightly away out of habit. Typical security with no more sinister implications in a shop she had begun frequenting often with Peter; she placed it low in priority and examined a can of spray adhesive. 

She considered Peter as she pretended to read the label’s cautions, his hand hovering over two different shades of blue and his other hand already full of little glass jars. The last months had been hard, as holiday followed holiday and the crush of people and expectations threw the gaping loss of his parents into harsh contrast. They had done their best to remember everything, but even when they got it just right, getting it right was all kinds of wrong. Her heart ached every time she went up to bed and heard him sniffling into his pillow. He would hold his breath and pretend to be asleep when she called out to him softly, and she would go to lie awake in her own bed after sending Ben to see if he could do anything. And in the mornings that followed, Peter would always be determinedly cheerful and painfully well-behaved. 

Chinese New Year had been its own kind of gauntlet to run as her mother had come up from DC for a visit, announcing the fact that she would do so with barely any notice. She had proceeded to intimidate Peter as much as she ever did, ordered him around with the benevolent despotism of an honorary grandparent, and made him squire her to every lunch that the old friends were having. There he got his cheeks thoroughly patted and his merits discussed in loud Mandarin that he imperfectly followed. 

Her mother would brook no opposition or debate on the subject. _*Qiaolian, no matter where he is he will miss his parents; he might as well be out with me. If you don’t show him off a little then for the rest of his life everyone will put ‘poor’ in front of his name. Let them get it out of their systems now and it’ll be better later. He’ll be distracted and get lots of red envelopes; things could be worse.*_

That her mother had just as effectively distracted Melinda and Ben was not discussed, although it was surely a premeditated secondary benefit of the ‘op’. She thought about her mother adhering to old traditions through making new ones and she realized her entire childhood had been that way. 

Today, Peter had asked to come shopping so he could spend more of his carefully budgeted red envelope loot on the secret project he had been building in the garage for more than a month. Ben had refused to peek and Melinda thought peeking was beneath her; any self-respecting covert operative would already have deduced he was building some kind of remote controlled flyer based on his pattern of purchases, the things he was scavenging from Ben’s junk box, and the clues he had let slip. If he was buying paint, then it must almost be done.

“So, spring recess, we should do something,” she said as she put the can of spray adhesive back on the shelf. “What do you think, we hop in the car and spend a few days finding out what nature looks like? Maybe find some trees or something.” 

Peter had apparently decided that both blues were absolutely necessary and carefully stacked all his little jars into the basket she was holding. He looked skeptical. “There are trees everywhere; there’s a tree in the backyard and _two_ in the front! Is this some grownup thing about ‘getting in touch’ with nature?” She could practically hear the air quotes.

“What, you don’t want to catch your dinner and cook it over an open fire? Sleep under the stars? Leave the computer home for a while?” She started laughing at the look of dismay on his face. He was such a city boy at heart, just like his mother.

“Aunt May!”

“Oh the horror, no I will not ask you to leave your computer at home. A friend of mine has a cabin upstate he’s not using; it even has running water! What do you say, will your project be done in time to take it with us if we head out in a few days? Could be fun.” 

“I can take my computer? And there’s a real bathroom?” he asked suspiciously.

“Yes, and yes,” she answered solemnly, laughing on the inside.

“We-e-ell…. OK, I guess it could be fun. Oh, there won’t be so many telephone poles, right? That would be good!” 

Reassured and cheerful again, he chattered on about the benefits of airspace uncluttered by power lines as he finished making his selections. Melinda slipped a few packs of blank t-shirts (in the appropriate sizes) and a package of tie dyes into the basket on their way to the checkout and then later a pouch of chocolate covered pretzels as they waited on line. Peter gamely hefted both shopping bags as they left the shop. 

She claimed her own shopping bag when they reached the bus stop. She fished out the chocolate covered pretzels, handing the pouch to him and then checked the time. 

He was on his second pretzel after offering her the open bag when he asked, “What are the googly eyes for?” 

“They’re for a mission; I don’t know if you can be trusted with such sensitive information.” She gave him an exaggerated side-eye as she retrieved another pretzel and he rolled his eyes.

“‘1,000 self-adhesive wiggle eyes, assorted’,” he quoted as he examined a smear of chocolate on his palm and then licked it off. “What kind of mission needs googly eyes?”

The bus rolled up at that moment and they hopped on, Melinda refusing to think of Peter’s spit covered palm slapping up the railing as they presented their passes. If she thought about that too much she would never touch another surface in New York again. She leaned into him as they sat down and he giggled as she squeezed him into the corner with an air of exaggerated secrecy.

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it is to help me prank your uncle with 1,000 assorted self-adhesive wiggle eyes.”

“April Fool’s Day was Thursday!” 

She scoffed as only a world class covert operative could scoff. “Only an amateur pranks people when they expect it.”

***

The next morning, Melinda and Peter snuck down after Ben got up to make Sunday breakfast and she showed him the mirror trick for looking around corners. They watched as he sleepily opened the refrigerator, saw all the food staring back at him, and then closed the refrigerator. He paused and then went to the cupboard with the coffee, paused when the coffee canister and assorted boxes of tea stared back at him, shut the door, waited a moment, and then opened the cupboard again. Peter stifled a squeak as Ben stared hard into the cupboard for a long moment and then proceeded to ignore the googly eyes as he started a pot of coffee. He barely skipped a beat when the mixing bowls all had eyes on them, ... and the mixing spoons, ... and the bag of flour. When he opened the egg carton and found every single egg staring back at him, however, he lost it, folding almost in half with laughter. Peter crowed and bounced into the room, nearly making Ben drop the eggs as he crashed into his uncle for a hug. 

“We got you good, didn’t we! It took forEVER to do everything! It was my idea to do the eggs!” 

Ben wiped tears from his eyes and tried to catch his breath as he shoved the eggs in the general direction of the counter. Melinda rescued them after taking another picture and crowded in for her own hug, and a little kiss. 

“He’s a good assistant; listens to direction but takes initiative.” 

“I can see that!” Ben said, and they all looked at each other before dissolving into laughter again.

It was a good morning.


	3. Exfiltration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May in May 2004.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is what I would call "un-fun". It's in the head of May on a bad day. She's got a good network of people and she's self aware and seeking help, but the chapter is about her working on it. So please proceed or skip accordingly. I've upped the rating to Teen just in case.

There were good days. Then there were… other days.

This particular day began in the pre-dawn quiet of the city. Ben’s soft breathing beside her, the distant rumble of garbage trucks that had not yet turned down their street, and the occasional chirp of an urban bird that still recognized sunrise despite the light pollution. 

It was perhaps the bird that did it. That tiny life concerned with only its tiny needs, making do with the scraps humanity had left it and knowing no better. But that was a romantic’s excuse and Melinda was a brutal pragmatist at times like these. It was all on her, on her past and present failures, her inadequacies and her fundamental weakness that could not shake off the sucking self-loathing that threatened to overwhelm her. 

And she knew that even that was a failing, hubris to blame herself for what she could not do in this moment because she could not face a moment in the past. Even with crystalline self-awareness, even knowing that it was an impossible standard to which she would hold no one else, she felt her failure once again like the stench of blood and piss and brains filling her lungs, choking her breath and staining her skin with death. 

She stared at the wall where a few yellow bars of streetlamp light bled past the curtains and crossed the photos that hung there. She noted each bend and jag and straightaway as the lines of light met the edges of the frames, leaving the people in the photos obscured by glare as well as shadow. 

She closed her eyes and breathed deep for a moment before she shifted the blankets and carefully slipped away from Ben’s arm around her waist. She waited as he murmured in his sleep and then hugged her pillow to himself before settling again. She had her routine and there was no reason to disturb him.

Tai-chi brought warmth and pliancy to her muscles as she slowly, so slowly moved through the postures of offense and defense, each act extended, attenuated from its original purpose and dispersed into thousands of minute directions and corrections that flowed as if without beginning or end to the next. She found peace there sometimes; for today knowing the limits of her own skin and bones would have to be enough. 

The cold sting of the shower, the bitterness of the morning tea, the clatter of a butter knife against a plate as Peter snatched up his toast and backpack, shoved his feet into his sneakers, and ran for the bus. Melinda tried to smile at him, but she was too slow, too slow and she had no more than turned in his direction before there was the slam of the door and he was gone.

“Melinda.” And Ben was there, standing next to her. He reached for her hand and with some thought she turned her cold palm into his warm one, trying again for a smile and managing a quirk of her lips. 

“I’ll be late for work,” she said, squeezing his hand before letting go and pushing herself away from the counter to go back to their room.

It was automatic: unlocking the gun safe, checking her weapon, checking the holster, slipping the holster into her waistband and around to her back then clipping it to her belt, securing her weapon, tucking in her shirt and tightening her belt. She did not have to think about it at all. She checked the silhouette of her shirt and the line of her trousers, pulled on her suit jacket, and checked again. She wished she had to think about it. 

She collected her briefcase and shoes and was back in the kitchen in less than five minutes. Ben had retrieved her raincoat from the hall closet and set it next to her brown bag and her pager. She pulled the one on and the others went into her briefcase and her pocket, respectively. 

Ben took her hand again and she resisted the urge to shrink away. 

“I’ll call him,” he said, a question in his look if not his intonation.

“Okay,” she said. “Yes, okay.”

He kissed her fingers and she pulled away to slip on her shoes and attempt to muster some urgency for the walk to the subway in the mizzling damp.

Her message notification beeped just as she reached the cover of the stairwell and she noted the 1:00pm appointment and location. 

The morning passed in an unrelenting tedium of paperwork that never seemed to end or change no matter how many files she processed. She skipped her brown bag and went to the gym at lunch, training with such focus and for so long that she arrived at her appointment with her hair tied back and still half wet from her shower. Water seeped down the dark strands of her ponytail, clinging in swelling droplets to the ends before shaking free and speckling the white of her shirt. 

The door to the borrowed meeting room was open when she arrived.

“Dr Garner.” 

“Agent May.”

She closed the door behind her and took a seat.

It was difficult to break her ingrained silence and talk about the day’s setback and to dissect events to find an external trigger that might not exist. To explore her actions and give herself some short term rules to follow because skipping lunch to beat up probies was maybe not the most constructive use of her time. To admit how it still soured her stomach when she heard them whisper her nickname behind her back. It was hard forcing the words past her teeth, voicing what her mind had whispered to her all day. But the difficulty of a task had never stopped her before, and so she did not hesitate.

It was not a penance, nor the lancing of a boil, nor catharsis, nor even forgiveness. He offered her gentle but unflinching, inexorable perspective, and she took it in as valuable intel, processed it and tried to act on it.

“You’re my exfil,” she explained with a ghost of humor as their session wound to a close. 

He smiled at the pun. “I don’t think two dates makes me your ‘ex’ anything, but I’m glad you let Ben call me.” 

“I’m glad too, Drew.” 

The thing about her job was that it was too high clearance to be farmed out and too important to zone out. Melinda let her subconscious work on her problems while she addressed the stack that had accumulated on her desk while she was at her appointment. She was careful with her crumbs as she ate her sandwich, flagging the current file for return and clarification, marking each section with an obnoxious red sticky question mark. For all the tech around, there was still some petty joy to be found in office supplies. 

Peter was doing homework in his room when she got home and Ben had started dinner (spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, and salad, because Peter could eat red sauce every night of the week without complaint, and Melinda had a weakness for garlic bread). She answered Ben’s questioning look with a small smile and he pulled her in for a gentle, relieved hug. Her holster pressed up against her back in a reminder that she needed to change before Peter came down and she patted Ben on the shoulder and pointed at the violently bubbling sauce pot. He yelped and went over to turn off the flame and stir the scorching bottom, and she smiled again and went up to change. 

She remained silent through dinner, although present and reacting in looks if not words as Peter chattered on about school and his homework and his latest project. Ben peppered the flow with questions and commentary, and Melinda was not sure if Peter even noticed she had not spoken at all. 

“Can we watch a movie?” Peter asked after they finished cleaning up after dinner, looking at her and not Ben. Well, that cleared up whether he had noticed. She nodded and he bounced over to the stack of dvds from the library and came back with two. She made a face at _The Italian Job_. “Uncle Ben, we’re watching _Holes_! Can we have popcorn?”

“We just finished dinner!” Ben groaned, laughing. Melinda raised an eyebrow and cocked her head. “All right, all right, I know when I’m outvoted.”

“Nothing weird on it!” Peter called out as he went to pop in the dvd.

Melinda went to get the butter as Ben pulled out the hot air popper and a big bowl. “Pepper is not weird,” he grumbled and she rolled her eyes but patted his back consolingly.

Soon they were on the couch and she somehow ended up in the middle, Ben’s arm around her and his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter slowly migrated from sitting next to her to resting against her side and she tucked him under her arm. By halfway through the film they had all scootched down into the sofa, Ben had his feet up on the edge of the coffee table, she had her knees draped over his thighs, tucked into his side, and Peter was sitting crossways, his feet curled up under him as he leaned into her, his arms hugging the bowl to his stomach. The whole house smelled like buttered popcorn, so she pressed her nose against Ben’s shirt and caught laundry detergent, garlic and oregano overlaying his warm and slightly musky skin. If she turned her head, Peter would smell mostly of butter, with a generous dash of somewhat dirty boy. Yeah, that was what he smelled like. For some reason his head always had a hint of soy sauce to it, even if he had just washed his hair. She could only think that that was what growing boys smelled like.

It was still early but she locked up as Ben sent Peter up to bathe. ( _“I’m not that dirty!” “You’re covered in butter. What are you doing; saving it for later?”_ ) When she went in to check on Peter he was backwards over his bedcovers reading, hanging half off the mattress in what could not have been a comfortable position with his book open and propped up on the floor. He rolled off the bed when he saw her and gave her a tight hug as she smoothed his damp hair off his forehead. He had a little frown between his eyebrows but it went away when she smiled and hugged him back. She tapped his clock as he scrambled back into bed, bringing his book with him this time.

“I know, lights out. I just want to finish this chapter.” She turned off the overhead light, leaving him to his bedside lamp.

Ben’s laptop was on his side of the bed, but he was showering so she knew he was on board for an early night. He put his laptop on the dresser and turned off the light before climbing into bed and pulling her close. She carefully relaxed each muscle group until she melted into his embrace and she whispered into the warm, clean curve of his neck. “Thank you.”

His arms tightened a little and he kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

“We’re doing OK.”

“Yeah, we are.”

“I love you.”


	4. Greek Words for Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday February 13, 2005

Melinda was capable of making split second choices on the slimmest margin of data, but she preferred to let events play out as long as possible. Today, this meant making a fresh pot of coffee and answering the door when Phil rang the doorbell.

He turned from where he had been politely admiring the red paper and gold foil _fu_ that was taped to the sidelight window for Chinese New Year. His eyelids twitched faintly in surprise. “This is unexpected.”

She stepped aside, pulling the door open further and the ghost of a smirk pulled at her lips. “Come in before you let out all the heat. You’re just in time for coffee,” she said as she closed the door. She saw him assessing the messy pile of assorted salt-stained boots on the mat next to the door as he shed his loafers, and she let her smile widen as she hung up his coat.

“A house in Queens,” he mused as he followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the kitchen bar. 

“A house in Queens,” she agreed, pulling down a mug. 

Right on schedule the door to the garage flew open as Peter bounced in, chilly air rolling around their ankles before he shut the door. His open coat flapped around his frame as he toed off his sneakers. He spared Phil a glance, but nothing more. “I finished! Now can I go? Pleeaaaase?” 

Melinda laughed under her breath and retrieved an egg tart from the refrigerator. “Yes, you’re done, thank you. Take this and go back to whatever it is that’s so important.”

Peter dashed off upstairs, his thanks muffled by a mouthful of pastry.

She poured the coffee, watching Phil from the corner of her eye. He was displaying a particularly good example of his gobsmacked look as he sank onto one of the bar stools. She slid the mug toward him and lifted an eyebrow, waiting.

He was still unusually wide-eyed. “I know you got married after, but this is…. He’s at least nine! I think I would have noticed something nine years ago!”

Melinda gave up trying to hold back the grin. “He’s ten, and he’s my nephew, Phil.” She let him chew on that for a moment and retrieved some more egg tarts. She put two on a plate and set it down in front of him before collecting her tea mug. 

“Well, this explains why the Director told me to come here today. Did you know why?” He popped one of the pastries out of its foil cup and took a bite. A scattering of flaky crumbs clung to his mouth before he grabbed a napkin and wiped them away.

“He asked me if I would be alright with it after the meeting about Madrid. He thought it might contextualize a situation you’ve been having?” She chased her own bite with a sip of tea.

He gestured with the half eaten pastry. “This is Fury’s way of telling me that there’s a very good reason why a specialist who flew through accelerated Academy training in four months goes on so many off book assignments for him despite the fact that I’ve been tapped as his supervising agent and should theoretically know about said off book assignments.” He finished off the egg tart and took the time to sip his coffee. 

Dropping the napkin next to his plate, he gave her a wry look as she put on her blandest, most deadpan ‘man in black’ face. He saw right through it, as always. “Sure, be that way. How was I to know he has a secret life? We were chasing him for years; I expected to actually see him once he passed the probationary period.” 

“Did you look?”

“Nothing on the books at SHIELD. I was part of the investigation to recruit him but Fury brought him in himself. I waited to start on state and local dependent on Fury’s answer.” 

She picked up a few crumbs off the counter with her fingertip and brushed them off into her empty tin. “This isn’t on the books at SHIELD either, and _no one there knows_ except for Fury and now you. My marriage, guardianship, all the ties I have to this house and this life are… obscured. If you looked hard enough you could figure out all of it, but you’d have to know where to look. Harder than that, you’d have to know that there’s something to find.” She quirked a wry smile. “Doing this without SHIELD resources is interesting, but I’ve managed. I wouldn’t have stayed if Fury hadn’t agreed. This has to stay separate; he understands that. And Phil, I’m not as interesting as an active field agent.” 

“I wouldn’t say that, but I get your point. Don’t draw attention to the mystery.” 

“You know it exists. That’s more information than you should have but Fury knows you’ll keep digging unless you know, and digging leaves a trail.” She left it unspoken that he had yet to earn the new agent’s trust.

He stood up and circled the bar to look at the detritus that usually accumulates on a refrigerator: the invoice from the boiler repair, the shopping list, a two-for-one pizza coupon, etc.. Ben had printed out his favorite picture from Halloween and stuck it up front and center with a magnet in the shape of a banana. Peter was in an artfully pinned up lab coat he’d found in a trunk of his father’s things, and a pair of similarly over-sized rubber gloves and safety glasses ( _I’m a scientist, not a mad scientist!_ ), Melinda was dressed normally but sporting black cat ears and ridiculous rhinestone encrusted cat-eyed eyeglass frames, and Ben had gone above and beyond and dressed in a homemade Erlenmeyer flask costume. Their left hand neighbors had caught the picture just as Peter had put on his Very Serious Face (™) while explaining the trick-or-treating route he had planned to Melinda. Ben had been doing the Funky Chicken in the background. 

Phil smiled at the picture and turned back to her. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re professional secret keepers.” 

She snorted. “I have a kid now, Phil. I know what that’s from. And you are still an enormous nerd.” He shrugged with that little half smile that said he was so far from ashamed that he was actually a little proud, and she had to swallow. A sudden lump in her throat was fighting against the strong urge to laugh. She had missed him. 

“Fury could have told me himself. He didn’t have to drag you into this.”

“No, he didn’t. I think he’s playing a long game to get me back in the field. His paperwork would be a disaster, but he keeps trying anyway. But I’m OK with it. With you knowing.” 

“You have a kid,” he shook his head as he walked back to his bar stool and sat down again. “How does that even happen? Not that I don’t know how kids happen, but you already told me that’s not how this went down.”

“This story needs more coffee.” She paused by the coffee maker while pondering the possible outcome of her next words. “You know, it’s funny that you came by today. Peter picked Captain America valentines to give out to his homeroom class tomorrow.”

*

Phil stayed to dinner and was properly introduced to Ben and Peter. He left with an open invitation to visit.

That night, Melinda hid chocolate cupcakes in Ben’s office and Peter’s lunch bag. 

The next morning, Ben made heart shaped blueberry pancakes and they all laughed at how the burst blueberries made it look like the hearts were diseased. They were delicious anyway.

Before Peter ran for the bus, he hugged her hard and gave her a card with a lacy heart he had carefully cut from printer paper. Melinda added it to the refrigerator with a magnet in the shape of Jupiter.


	5. Spring Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mid-March 2005

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Peter in this chapter. Sorry, but he didn't want to cross the river, either.

“Director.” Melinda had seen him before crossing the street. The parking lot was too small for her to have missed him, even if he had not been standing next to her car like a lamppost in the chilly sunshine. His arms were crossed as he watched a Cessna Caravan come in for a landing. 

“Did you know there’s a Redneck Avenue here? An honest to God ‘Redneck Avenue.’” He turned as she casually leaned against the fender of her car.

He watched her. She waited.

“Agent May, I want you to take over Barton’s flight training.” Seeing the downturn of her lips, he added, “I want him rated in everything we fly, and a good number things we don’t, and all as soon as is reasonable. You’re the only one available to do it.”

“I already have a job and it’s not flight instructor.” 

He glanced at the building behind them. “That it is not. Curiously enough, your personnel file is entirely free of the fact that you have privately maintained pilot certification for the last four years. I find this interesting.”

“I’m out of the field; it was irrelevant,” she shrugged. “I like to fly.”

“More convenient if it’s SHIELD giving you access.”

She knew he would have signed off on the exception for her; it was one reason she had not asked. “I felt SHIELD resources were better spent elsewhere, since I’m out of the field and would not be using those skills for SHIELD.” 

She could practically _feel_ his smile before it spread over his entire face like she had just handed him the keys to an eighty million dollar quinjet.

“Then it’s win-win. You get your flight hours in the comfort and convenience of a SHIELD facility _without_ active field status and I get my instructor. He’s in ground school with Cochren; I expect you to take that over and schedule him as you see fit. Re-validate your ratings at the same time and you’ll keep ahead of him.” 

“ _Without_ active field service.”

“That hasn’t changed. Though you’ll finally have to hire a second for your office and leave the building once in a while.” 

“Why me, sir?”

“Let’s just say you have the skill set, availability, and a fine grasp of certain special circumstances. Also, my ulterior motives are obvious.” 

“Your ulterior motives have ulterior motives,” she said, dry as the Sahara.

He cocked his head in the direction of the tiny Piper Seminole that had just taken off and lifted an ironic eyebrow. “You can’t tell me you don’t miss the kind of birds you used to fly.”

She shook her head and had to roll her eyes. “You came out to Jersey, sir.”

“That I did.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and started strolling towards the building as she moved to unlock her car. She opened the door to let out some of the accumulated heat when he turned mid-step and called back to her. “Let that stand in my favor when you look back on this day.” 

She huffed out a laugh as he crossed the street. She started her car and pulled out of the parking lot briskly. Unlike her boss, she had weekday bridge traffic ahead of her.


End file.
